“It’s offered a mirror to check how we’re doing,” Caspian Films on Investment Readiness and giving female auteurs a voice

Founded in 2018, Caspian Films was created to produce powerful stories from diverse and under-represented talent, each aimed at international audiences. At its core are Georgie Paget and Thembisa Cochrane, two producers who met while working on the same project and quickly discovered they shared similar sensibilities when it came to the projects they wanted to make.  

Wasting no time, they produced 2019’s family drama Us Among The Stones with a biopic of potter Clarice Cliff, The Colour Room, released in 2021. According to Paget, both films are indicative of the stories Caspian Films wants to be known for. “We tend to go for untold stories of ordinary people doing really interesting things,” she says, highlighting how rare it is to see a female-focused biopic of someone who isn’t a Royal. “Our stories are often about females or people from underrepresented, diverse backgrounds. That continues to impact the projects we have on our slate.” 

Empowering international voices is also a key part of their output. “We finished shooting our third film in Saudia Arabia last year and we’re prepping for our next one,” adds Cochrane of My Driver & I, which is due for release later this year. “It was by a Saudi female writer/director and it was her passion project. Of the three films we’ve made, two have been passion projects from female writers/directors and one has been our passion project that we found a director for. Our slate is a combination of those things.”   

It’s this unique angle that Caspian Films hopes to explore via distinct work that’s unlike anything else currently in the market. “It’s interesting to me that there’s such a deep mine of interesting, untold stories that speak to our contemporary society. We tend to go looking where the industry classically hasn’t in the past,” suggests Paget, highlighting how their remit is influenced by changes within the sector itself. “We’ve been in the industry long enough to know that if you were to pitch films with a female director or a female lead, you’d be told it was brave – and not in a great way,” she adds. “Now, that work gets made more and we’ve found people seek us out for exactly that.”  

It’s something inspired by the duo’s own taste in content. “We want to make films that we want to see,” explains Cochrane. “Nothing was appealing to us and we weren’t getting the intellectually challenging, smart, international feminist films that we like. We’re female producers serving female auteurs.” 

With their third feature complete and an exciting new project with a recognized female French auteur already in pre-production, Paget and Cochrane thought the time was right to push their company to new heights. To do this, they joined 2024’s Creative Enterprise Investment Readiness cohort to become pitch-proficient and secure the funds needed for future growth.  

“The phrase ‘working on your business instead of in your business resonated with me,” says Cochrane of the pair’s decision to join this year’s cohort. “At the same time, I got an email about Investment Readiness and thought ‘That’s literally how I’m feeling right now.’ We really want to create a business rather than live project-to-project.” Paget agrees that in order to grow they first need more resources, which in turn requires funding: “We love what we do and would love to have more capacity. It just feels like now is the moment.”  

By working with their industry mentor, Paget and Cochrane have already seen positive results. “To have a bottom-up, top-down look at what we do and what our strengths and weaknesses are is necessary for the health of any company,” admits Paget. “We’ve also been learning from our cohort peers. How do they present themselves to investors and what are they doing?” Having a direct connection to a mentor has also helped open their eyes to what the future of Caspian Films could be. “It’s really helped us build our vision and encouraged us to be more ambitious,” says Cochrane of this new relationship. “It’s helped us to hone everything and offered a mirror in which we and check how we’re doing.” 

Having access to an extended bank of industry connections has also been key: “Creative UK has plugged us into their other programmes,” adds Cochrane. “It’s been really valuable.” However, above all else, Investment Readiness has helped the duo take steps down a path that they may have never been able to make time for otherwise: “Without this opportunity, I don’t even know where we would’ve started,” continues the producer. “We might have muddled through on our own and been less successful and a lot less supported. It’s a gift.” 

As their time on Investment Readiness nears its end, Paget and Cochrane hope to leave the course exactly as its label might suggest. “Where would we like to be? Investment ready,” smiles Paget. “I’d like us to come away with a very clear idea of our five-year plan and have our investment ask in good shape,” she says, looking forward. “We’d like to know what it is we’re asking for and have a solid framework of how to go about achieving that goal.”  

Words and interview by Simon Bland